Best Bill Hicks album?

December 19, 2005 7:34 PM

I'm afraid I bought the wrong Bill Hicks album.

After hearing bits and pieces of Bill Hicks's performances, I decided to buy a full album. Upon recommendation of the CD store geek, I bought "Rant in E Minor" and was severely underwhelmed. Is there a better CD to start with, or is this truly the pinnacle of Hicksian wit?

posted by ColdChef to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

I think that Relentless and Arizona Bay are better. the Live at Oxford isn't half bad either
posted by matteo at 7:39 PM on December 19, 2005

Arizona Bay was one of his last, and probably his best.
posted by mathowie at 7:39 PM on December 19, 2005

oh, and the Live at Oxford is actually a double cd. good sound, too.
posted by matteo at 7:41 PM on December 19, 2005

and Chef, "Rant" may not be perfect, but doesn't it contain the Barbara-Bush-pissing-in-Rush-Limbaugh's-face routine? that was pretty funny
posted by matteo at 7:43 PM on December 19, 2005

here it is:

Speaking of Satan, I was watching Rush Limbaugh the other day. Doesn't Rush Limbaugh remind you of one of those gay guys who likes to lay in a tub while other men pee on him? Am I the only one? Can't you see his fat body in a tub while Reagan, Quayle and Bush just stand around pissing on him? His little piggly wiggly dick can't get hard, 'Uhh... uhh...I can't get hard. Reagan, pee in my mouth!' He still can't get hard, so Barbara Bush comes in. She takes off her pearls, and undoes her girdle. Her wrinkled, flaccid labia unfurls half way to her knees, like some ball-less scrotum. Barbara walks over, squats over his face, and squeezes out a link into his mouth. Finally, his tiny dick gets half-way hard. 'Oooh!' A little bubble forms on the end of his dick, with a little demon maggot inside. The demon maggot pops the bubble, and goes off to join a pro-life group somewhere.

posted by matteo at 7:46 PM on December 19, 2005

Damn! Hadn't heard that bit before. I love Bill Hicks.
posted by hartsell at 7:56 PM on December 19, 2005

Rant In E-Minor was poorly put together IMHO. The best stuff starts with the Jay Leno suicide bit and gets better from there.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:58 PM on December 19, 2005

If you don't like Rant, I think there's something wrong with you. But Arizona Bay is a very good disc, too.
posted by keswick at 8:01 PM on December 19, 2005

Wow, Rant in E Minor is my favorite Hicks album - It's amazing how it was done - what - 15 years ago and he might as well have made it today. Even the names haven't changed.
posted by any major dude at 8:04 PM on December 19, 2005

'Arizona Bay' is more coherent, but 'Rant' is more hardcore. You may prefer the later releases, which are from an earlier period, but are complete concert recordings. Or if you want something that's 'stolen from Denis Leary, and to put people off the scent, done before him', then start with 'Relentless' and 'Dangerous'.

(The Oxford one is dear to my heart, since I was there. It was eerie to hear it, Cowley Road jokes and all, so many years afterwards.)
posted by holgate at 8:33 PM on December 19, 2005

(For historical purposes, the Oxford set is fun because it came a week after Clinton's victory in 1992. It may well have been his first gig after the election, too, since I think the 'Revelations' gigs in London came later. The 'Ding Dong, Bush Is Dead' bit certainly felt like a joyous release.)
posted by holgate at 8:41 PM on December 19, 2005

we're the hooligans

Ryko disc has his whole catalog
http://www.rykodisc.com/Catalog/CatalogArtist_01.asp?Action=Get&Artist_ID=262

here's a best of:
http://www.rykodisc.com/Catalog/dump/rykoalbums_1241.asp
posted by raaka at 9:43 PM on December 19, 2005

I also love Rant in E Minor and consider it his best work. If you didn't like it... I dunno. He may not be for you.
posted by scarabic at 10:43 PM on December 19, 2005

The Oxford one is dear to my heart, since I was there.

!!!
posted by matteo at 11:42 PM on December 19, 2005

No. Bill Hicks, while amusing and interesting, is vastly overhyped, and not really that funny.
posted by cellphone at 2:32 AM on December 20, 2005

This is the shit. Hicks is so much better when you can see him as well as hear him. The best thing is to get the DVD which features "Relentless", "Revelations" and the documentary.

Cellphone may have a sense of humour, but if so I'm glad it's one I don't share. Hicks was a goddamned genius.
posted by Decani at 5:17 AM on December 20, 2005

"Bill Hicks, while amusing and interesting....."

cellphone, you sound like a Sunday School teacher.......
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
posted by Frasermoo at 7:07 AM on December 20, 2005

You did buy the wrong album. It's a bunch of short bits, right? Ugh. Shoot that clerk and go for the DVD set Decani mentions (good review here), or get Relentless or Revelations on CD.

I agree some of the CD material doesn't hold up that well - topical references tend to fall flat after 15 years, some of the material is pretty juvenile, and you've had years and years of other comics jumping off from where Hicks left off, so he comes across to a newbie now as derivative instead of the force of nature he was. But the stuff about commercials and pornography on Relentless is great, for instance, and his take on the "miracle of childbirth" (I think it's on Revelations) made my jaw drop the first time I heard it and still cracks me up today. There's lots more like that.

My favorite Hicks, though, comes from early in his career; a bootleg nth-generation copy of a show he did in some bar in Tennessee, I think, where he spent the opening ten minutes winding up the heavily smoking audience about the complete idiocy of smoking, poking and needling so much that you start to feel the hatred coming at him from the crowd, and start to wonder just how insane this comedian is. Then, just as you think he's going to have to run from a barrage of chairs, he joins them by lighting up in a hilarious moment. It's a brilliant, dangerous, shocking bit, with the residue of the recent hate hanging in the air for the rest of the set as an amazing lesson. In other words, classic Bill Hicks.

There are lots of those bootlegs floating around the net, and they're worth watching once you find your entry into Hicks' work.
posted by mediareport at 7:15 AM on December 20, 2005